Picture of a Family: Shouko's Tale
by ALittleDabllDoYa
Summary: A Koe no Katachi short. Ichida Shouya x Nishimiya Shouko. Nishimiya Shouko's outlook on life is skewed, due to her deafness. This is her side of the story.


**By RegalOneByTheStream**

 **10% chance is still a chance, they said. The sweetness rots the teeth, they said. Hmmmmmm.**

 **And so here's installment two.**

 **Thanks for follows, faves, and reviews to the first installment! Legit have no idea whether the basest mention of sex bumps stuff to M, but ehhhh I did it anyways. Just in case. And now I feel soooo free**

 **Anyways.**

 **Enjoy!**

 **XXXXXX**

Shouko couldn't remember a time that she had been able to hear.

She was always told (or she had always assumed that it was what had been said) that her deafness had been caused by an illness as an infant. It wasn't genetic, there wasn't anything wrong with her brain or her parents, it was just simple, dumb, bad _luck_. And it was always painful to acknowledge that at one point, she could hear the chirping of birds and the crackle-snap of grocery bags and the clicking of camera shutters. Why hadn't she filed all that away to remember, so that when she envisioned it she had her own knowledge and not what others told her? What if birds croaked, and grocery bags snap-crackled, and camera shutters popped? In the end, she had nothing but what she was told, and that was the most horrible thing about her pitiful life.

But those ideas didn't affect her until much, much later, until teenagerdom settled in. When she was younger, she had sweeter realities. Sure, she couldn't hear. Sure, her mother was a meanie when it came to her deafness. Sure, Granny was getting older and Yuzu took pictures of dead things and her classmates, especially that Ishida boy, acted strangely around her. It was nothing to be afraid of, as long as the sky was blue and the sun rose in the east and she always had her communications notebook with her. And she had to smile, because if her family knew how horrible she felt, deep deep down where her positivity couldn't reach, they would be troubled.

But then everything changed. They wrote mean things on the chalkboard and the teacher talked quickly so that she couldn't read his lips and they threw her hearing aids out the window so that what meager sounds she could still reach were blotted and made unreadable. But... _surely_ it was all jesting. They weren't doing it forever, it was childhood naïveté, and when they learned how to deal with it everything would be fine. And she smiled. Because her mother and her sister and her grandmother would be troubled if they knew what they did to her.

But then they took away her voice, and threw her notebook in the pond.

They smacked her hands away as if she were dirty. They crushed her hearing aids, one after the next after the next after the next until eight had gone "missing" in a single three week span. Smile, smile, _smile_.

To say it in sign language, one had to form "horns" with the index and pinky finger of the dominant hand, while the other hand pressed flat against the inside knuckles of the dominant hand, the non-dominant hand's pinky finger pointed upright. Then you butted the horns twice against the pinky.

All the normal people just called it _bullying_.

But now her communication book was gone. She no longer had a voice to say things like 'food' and 'bathroom', much less 'bullying'.

Shouko didn't like it, she didn't like it one bit. She knew exactly what it was: it was a constant recurring factor in her life. It hurt when they rolled their eyes because they thought she didn't see it. Smile. It hurt when they screamed in her ears and laughed because they thought she was so thick she couldn't tell. Smile. The sky was blue and the sun rose as it always had and always would. But it was all skewed. Because they had thrown her notebook in the pond.

They had taken away her voice.

Smile, smile, smile!

One day, though, they threw something else into the pond, too. Or rather, someone.

His name was not Ishida as she had first believed but but Ichida, Ichida Shouya, and for a time she believed that he would be her savior.

His eyes glared at everyone and everything, but they lit up with something when they looked at her. He might have been her main persecutor before, but that was before...and they were on the same team now, him and her against everyone else. But they would be nice, they would be accepting…and they would make it easier for each other to smile.

But he kicked her away and screamed at her, blood streaming down his face from where she saw, she saw Hirose and Shimada punch him and throw his shoes in the garbage. He told her that she was playing the weak man, that she was stupid, that she should just use her words, that she never told anyone how she felt.

That wasn't true at all. She wasn't weak if she took their bullying with this level of grace. She had excellent grades in her classes. She knew exactly how to communicate with words, even if what come out was a garbled mess since what she said wasn't the same as what she thought. And she always, always told them how she felt.

They just didn't listen.

She dropped her smile like a dirty rag and slapped him across the face.

And in retaliation, Ichida kicked her in the stomach.

"—teyu, EBEN AY'M DRRYONG BY _ARZEST_!"

 _("—tell you, even I'm doing my_ hardest

They bit, they scratched, they screamed, they punched, they kicked, they pulled hair. As students started to mill into school, they came across the brawling pair and stopped to watch, like it was some comedy. _Deaf Girl versus Bully Boy, what a show!_

Every morning before then, she had cleaned his desk, wiping off the curses and the hatred that had been slathered across it in bold, bright ink.

The morning after that, she received a haircut, a new set of hearing aids, and the information that she had transferred to a school across town.

But she had never felt so _free_ as she did after hitting Ichida, kicking and clawing her problems away. He was a dummy and a jerk. But they were still birds of a feather, the bullied ones.

Shouko planned never to meet him again.

The next time she saw him, she was starting her third and last year of high school.

Even from her standpoint, Shouko could see how he had changed. He still slouched when he walked, and he still pursed his lips and crinkled his eyes into a glare. But it was less intense than it was back then, a calmer sort of undercurrent rather than his brash, rude self back in the sixth grade. She smiled to see that his hair was still a mess; she had always kind of admired how his spiky bedhead defied gravity.

And then she freaked out. Because this was _Ichida Shouya_. The boy who had hit her, the boy who had ostracized her, the boy who hadn't liked her through the very end despite her only wish to be his friendy. Entering, Bully Boy. Again, just like she had after the fight in middle school, Deaf Girl ran.

"Ah! Hey!"

Hm. She'd heard _that_ clearly. But she had her hearing aids in, so that was to be expected. Shouko didn't turn, didn't dare try and find out if those glaring eyes would hold a semblance of warmth or if they would pierce her, just as they had in middle school.

"Ni...ya! … _MIYA_!"

Did he say... _Nishimiya_? Was it just her hopeless wishful thinking? He'd always called her _deaf girl_ back then...turning, she spared him a look. He was sprawled on the floor, she saw. He seemed resigned, slumping his forehead to the ground and exhaling, his body deflating against the ground. And maybe it was the defeat she saw, or maybe that Nishimiya, or maybe just her own curiosity. But she turned around and walked back, crouching and grabbing his hand.

W…H…Y she drew on his palm. His glaring eyes darted to stare at her, and she blushed from the sudden attention. He grabbed her hand and stumbled to his feet, pulling her up too and staring at her in amazement. Not unkindly letting go of her hands, he started to talk, making wide gestures as his mouth moved and looking into her face with something akin to remorse reflected there.

Suddenly he stopped talking, clapping his hand to his forehead. Then he held out his shaky hands and to her shock, he signed, "You forgot something."

Reaching into his bag, he produced her communications notebook. It was stained and it was dirty, curled and crusty from being waterlogged, and the ink was smeared across the pages. But it was the book that they had thrown in the pond, and with numb fingers she received it.

But then, something else much more precious became apparent. "You learned sign language?!" she said with her hands.

He scratched the back of his head and nodded with reddened cheeks, then signed and spoke, "I just wanted to say one thing. You suffered a lot because no one could hear your voice…"

Shouko watched his hands as they faltered, as Ichida built up what he was trying to say. Spontaneously, she flipped open the notebook.

 _ **Freak**_.

 _ **Weirdo**_.

 _ **No one likes—**_

Ichida's hand splayed across the page.

"Don't...don't read that," he said and signed. She lowered the notebook as he continued, "I'm here selfishly...I hate myself...I've lived for seventeen years, and I haven't changed in one of them. I still… think that everything would have been different if we'd heard each other back then." His eyes glistened, and Shouko could only stare in shock as his signals became choppier; he was more vehement. "The only time I ever heard you was when I was hurting you, and I hate that! But…" he sighed, the energy deflating out of him, and his eyes met with hers. His constant glare was completely gone now, leaving place for a raw vulnerability. "...I think I understand what you were trying to say back then."

"Nishimiya-chan...can you and I be friends?"

 **XXXXXX**

All those months came and went. The gatherings, the breakdown and rebuilding of their friend group, that lonely summer where she had almost destroyed Ichida's life. Failed suicides and rejected apologies, cute cat gifts and misunderstood confessions. Their mothers' bonding. Her grandmother's death. All of those upside-down peace signs, see you laters that made Shouko realize what it meant to have an impatient, longing goodbye.

They decided to share each other's pain with perfect understanding and unrelenting support, and they promised: no more bridge-jumping, no more suicide attempts, _no more_.

High school passed with all of its up and downs, and then a beautiful graduation day that was over before she could process that it had happened and her induction into a beautician school in Tokyo breezed into place.

Their group split up, yes, but surprisingly a lot of them went into similar callings: Sahara-chan became a model, Ueno-san a designer, Kawai-chan an author, Nagatsuga-kun a director, Mashiba-kun an actor...and Ichida-kun went into cosmetology and hairdressing, studying under his mother and learning foreign techniques from his Brazilian brother-in-law, getting professional certification and learning practical business through a local source.

As they had gone into the same line of work, she often consulted Ichida on style scheme; mostly exploitations of the big trends and what looked good with what. He was much better at the commonness of everyday makeup, while she had a more fancy, high-class style with colors and delicacy and design, but it was the other way around with hair: he made looping swirls and artistic buns and perfect braids in record timing, while she could make a fantastic pair of pigtail braids if she spent thirty minutes working at it.

And then Shouko found herself revering every FaceTime or Skype call further than before, when she had had a crush in high school. She realized that she sighed on days they didn't text each other. She noticed that having a picture of herself and a guy on her phone's lock screen was a tipoff to others that she was in a relationship, even if the photo was one from the Lonely Summer where she and Ichida posed with a grumpy cat that took up more than half of the screen.

Everyone in her school knew her as the pretty deaf girl who was a great artist and had a hot boyfriend (someone even told her that it had briefly been passed around that they were _just friends_ , and that the rest of the campus had laughed in the rumoror's face and shunned him for the next few days) that was working back in their hometown.

Their first romantic date came as no surprise to any of them. Some of the girls from her classes came over with their boyfriends and said hello, and she could have sworn she saw one mouthing threats to him, but generally, no one was shocked, even when she kept him in her dorm room overnight since they were out too late and missed the last train. Her roommate glanced at them, snickered, said something like, "Deaf Nishimiya is getting more action than I ever have," and bounced away to go bum a bed off of their neighbor. Shouya's face darkened to a plum color and he collapsed on the proffered bed, refusing to meet her eyes.

(Nothing happened that night. Shouko wasn't sure if she wished something had.)

After that, he came to Tokyo loads of times, taking her out and treating her nicely and smiling at her in that Ichida Shouya way that no one could ever replicate and oh, Shouko realized that she felt more than that crush because this _was_ more than that crush.

Nishimiya Shouko was in love with Ichida Shouya.

And every time their lips touched, slow at first as if he was worried he would break her and rougher later when his desire took the reins, she convinced herself that he was in love with her too.

 _Ha_. Who could ever love a deaf girl like her, when she forced him to share in her suffering? It was pity, that's all, he was misunderstanding his feelings of platonic like for romantic love.

She planned to free him from her after she formally graduated, even as she cried at the thought of separation, even when her body physically rebelled at the idea and forced her gag reflex to act up, even when she imagined his wounded gaze and his tears, such precious things she'd only seen once in her life, but he'd get over her, he _had_ to.

Shouko was in her gown and cap, dragging her feet, sick to her stomach, Ichida by her side and Yuzu snapping photos off somewhere. They both sensed her melancholy. They probably associated it with the ending of school and didn't say anything, even when Ichida's eyes rang with confusion when she refused to hold his hand, a precursor of the hurt he was about to reflect.

And after the ceremony, when all was said and done and she was trying to gather the nerve to force the damnable words from her throat, he told her how unworthy he was of her and how much he hated his own selfishness, and then pulled out a diamond hoop—was that a _ring_ , that _couldn't_ be right— _but_ — "I love you, Nishimiya Shouko, even though I know I shouldn't. I don't have the right to ask anything of you, but will you please make miso soup for me everyday?"

She sobbed, because it was all her fault, and she had no idea why he felt guilty, and he was just so unfair because _how_ could she refuse when she was this selfish, when she loved him this much?

He told her once, and when she brought it up he told her again. He was going to share all of her pain, whether she liked it or not. It was just _meant to be_.

Their engagement ceremony was short and quick. Shouko's father didn't show up and Shouya's was already dead, and the mothers already knew each other quite well, so there were no hitches. Their wedding was tiny, despite what Nagatsuga wanted it to be. It was a small ceremony with a meaningful congregation. There were few people Ichida wanted to invite anyways, and Shouko needed visual cues for things so it took double the preparation for her.

It was the most magical night of Shouko's life so far...and after the reception, both of them slightly tipsy and completely free of stress, guilt, pain, anything but love, Ichida carried her into their new apartment, right upstairs of the new establishment they now owned courtesy of Kawai's generosity (and she'd also paid the first year's rent in advance, most likely at Mashiba's prodding and as a show of the money she now had from her bestselling book series). He carried her over the threshold, both of them giggling like children at their first marital act, and it didn't take long for Ichida to strip off her cream wedding gown and his dark suit, to pull her bare body across his and show her just how much he loved her, burning palms against her cool skin, slow, soft, sweet. It was awkward with immaturity and funny with cute mistakes and glorious with the bliss when they finally figured it out, and it was pain, love, and joy, all in one.

He tried not to leave marks on her. She could not say the same for him. Shouko loved the vibrations he made in his throat when she suckled on his neck, realized that he enjoyed seeing the lust on her face as she scrabbled at his back in a way that would leave streaks on his skin in the morning.

And that morning, she woke up as Ichida Shouko. And she could call Ichida by his given name, Shouya, because technically they both were Ichida now.

It still took her a while to finally get it right.

"SSSSS-oyah?"

His brow wrinkled. "Less of a snake sound in the beginning and more of a 'h' sound in the So, but that was pretty good!"

"Suh- _HUH_ -oyah?"

He laughed and kissed the wrinkles on her forehead, crawling under the kotatsu they had brought out for winter to join her on her side. "I take it back. The other pronunciation was just fine."

They loved again, this time lasting a little longer, and Shouko adored every minute of it, sweat and vibrations and scratches.

But there was _one thing_.

They had been married for a while at the time she had realized just how much it bothered her, and their work was booming, especially now that Shouya's mother had retired and Nagatsuga had started asking exclusively for their services for one of his projects. Shouko only realized it as she received a woman who was going to a formal dinner party, and was heavily, _heavily_ pregnant. She didn't catch all of what the woman said, and what she did catch she replied to with the best of her ability, but she caught the gist of "pregnant on my wedding night" and "even if it's gross and agonizing, it's the best I've felt for a long, long time."

And a little lightbulb went off in her head.

"Soyah, ged me p'egnun."

"What?" he said, newly emerged from the shower, towel resting dangerously low on his hips. He glanced at her and immediately went wide-eyed.

The pregnant woman had been all too happy to assist Shouko in buying some rather _suggestive_ undergarments.

"Ged me p'egnun," she repeated, tapping her ribcage, "I wand yu."

He descended on her quickly enough, still soft, still rougher as time went on, and _damn_ , he still put a condom on. It was time for plan B, what the devious pregnant woman had called the 'failsafe'.

With a bobby pin and steady fingers, Shouko sabotaged the _entire box_. Because, as her grandmother had always told Yuzu, _better safe then sorry_.

She waited for a week so that Shouya wouldn't suspect anything, and on the planned night, she donned the lingerie again. Shouya was soft, rough, and used a condom. And two weeks later, both the corner store and the doctor's tests (and her stomach, bleurgh) told her that she undoubtedly, undeniably, wonderfully had a BFP—a big fat _pregnancy._

Shouko's teenage self would be appalled to know that the keys to happiness were a communications notebook, a bowl of miso soup, and a safety pin.

 **XXXXXX**

 **And there it is. A bit shorter, but you know. Shouko's POV, and a little skim of the series before the last chap info and how she tricked Shouya because I** **believe he's THAT much of a dumbass. I MADE HER A TROLL GAAAAHH.**

 **Also, Shouko's entire campus is a shipper. That's how hard it is.**

 **Thanks for reading! Follows, faves, and reviews are welcome.**

 **~ _RegalOneByTheStream_ **


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